Molly Elian Carlson was born and raised in Minnesota around the Twin Cities. When she was in her teens she became very active in the Latino community as she had grown up with Latino friends and become fluent in Spanish. She attended a Spanish-language, mainly Mexican, Catholic church and became very involved in Latino-rights and community activism. She is still active, but now works giving dawah about Islam in Spanish.

An excerpt from Molly’s story, “A Cariene Kind of Love”:

“I especially gave my wali, the Pakistani man who took the role of my father in Islam, a hard time about it. He would beg me, “Beta, does he have to speak Spanish? I mean, there are many good, non-Spanish brothers looking for wives. Think about them, please.”

But I was unrelenting. I was certain that the only man who would understand my desire to dance through my living room to cumbias and bachatas, partake of a Sunday-morning menudo with me, and laugh with me at the telenovelas I was secretly addicted to would be a Latino.”

To read more of Molly’s story, order Love InshAllah today!

Why were you drawn to this project?

I’ve always wanted to be involved with projects that get the word out about ‘normal’ Muslims. I want people to realize that we are Americans just as much as anyone else, we just happen to also be Muslim, and love is such a universal and unifying topic.

What was the most challenging part of sharing your story?

Making it interesting! It’s interesting to me of course, since I lived it, I just hope that I got that to come across.

If there’s one thing you hope that readers will take away from your story, what is it?

That we may be convinced that we want a certain thing or type of person, but who and what we end up with may be the complete opposite and even better than we ever could have imagined. Back then I never thought that I would marry who I married, but I wake up every morning thanking God for the amazing man that He brought for me. My husband has qualities that I never thought to look for, but now that I have them I can’t imagine ever having married someone without them.